Saturday, March 31, 2007

Prepare for Crane-o-geddeon! I have about a billion crane photos and I'm trying to whittle them down to the most interesting shots. Truth is, there's only so many ways you can capture a big bird wandering around in a field. :) Me n' Lanette had a great time driving around and clicking our cameras at them, though; it's hard to believe just how many birds stop over the plains on their way to Siberia. Click to enlarge.

I just got back from taking a boatload of crane photos with Lanette. It'll probably be a while before I can get them all processed (I'm still a bit behind in processing another batch of photos, oy vey!), so I'll post one of the easier ones. This was an HDR shot, compiled and downsampled in Photoshop CS3. There were 8 shots total, each bracketed 1 EV apart, tripoded and cable released, ISO 100. This was shot with a Canon EF-S 10-22. Click to enlarge. :)

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Today's photo is of some rather cute kids looking at the camera through an ice sculpture at an anniversary party I went to recently. (The sculpture was really something else -- an intricately shaped replica of a '20's era Chrysler.) Click to enlarge. :)

Monday, March 19, 2007

A couple of days ago, I posted two photos of a sunset over the Platte (one with birds, one without.) That shot looked pretty good and dramatic to me, but it also highlighted the limits of dynamic range on modern DSLR sensors. To get the sun exposed right, the ground had to be silhouette and the upper cloud deck nearly black. While I like the other shots more than this one, here's an example of the kind of flexibility that can be afforded with the same scene when using HDR.

This was done with 5 photos, each taken 2 EV apart using a 70-200 2.8 IS lens on a 20D, tripoded and cable released. The source photos were merged and downsampled in CS3 and edited with CS2. Click to enlarge.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Tried a little experiment with trying to create a darker than usual HDR. This was assembled and downsampled in CS3, then edited (on a faster computer) with CS2. This was shot tripoded and cable released with a Canon 10-22 EFS lens at 10mm. There were 12 shots total, each 1 EV apart. Click to enlarge.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

The Sandhills cranes are back in central Nebraska. I drove around a bit today to try to get an idea of just how long a lens I'm going to need to rent when I come down here to photograph them for real later this month. They're still rather timid out the fields, so I didn't get many good shots during the day. The sunsets around here, though, are always spectacular. :) I can't decide which shot I like more: #1 or #2. My sister says #1's the winner. What do you think? Click to enlarge.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Today's photo is of a sunset over Lincoln, Nebraska -- in reflection. There are a row of reflective windows on one of the local buildings that face west, so I took an elevator to the top of a parking garage and tried to get the sunset shot. Click to enlarge:

Just for a reference of what you're looking at, here's a wider shot from a little bit earlier:

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Those nutters over at Top Gear decided to test this one out with a live human guniea pig. :) What I like about this clip is that it dispels the common myth that cars make you safe because of the "rubber tires". As the show rightly points out, if a bolt of lightning can jump three miles through air, which is a terribly good insulator, then it's not very likely to be hindered much by a few inches of rubber. (And even if it were, it would simply bypass the rubber and jump the air gap between the body and the earth.) Cars ARE safe, however, for an entirely different reason. Weather nerds already know that reason, but if you don't -- well, I've never seen it demonstrated quite so well as in the following clip:

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Today's photo is from a building adjacent to the Nebraska State capitol building. The facade is of a giant stone hand with a carved family at front. Someone told me that the figures were originally nude, but people complained. (Normally, this would seem unlikely -- however, all the family members are depicted as wearing Star Trek like Lycra, which also seems unlikely, so who knows. :))

Monday, March 05, 2007

When I was at UNL looking for students using cellphones, I ran into a group playing a fun game of toss-the-ball. I also rediscovered that you need at least 1/1000th to freeze a mid-air football... as you can see, 1/500th doesn't really cut it. Kinda boring shots, too, but it's been a long time since I've tried to do anything resembling sports. (Maybe that's a good challenge... I should show up at the next UNK football game and try to get some snaps. I don't think the 70-200 would be enough reach, though.) Click to enlarge.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

I got invited by the Addys to go and see the singer/songwriter Shevy Smith last night at UNK. Smith is traditionally someone who writes songs for other artists, but she does a good bit of performing, herself. I found her live voice to be a lot closer to contemporary folk than country, but the mixing on her CD was pure country. :) At any rate, she puts on a great show; she's one of those artists that likes to tell stories in-between songs and, IMO, those are the best types. Click any of the photos below to enlarge.